Thursday, December 11, 2003, 09:07 p.m. -

Ran says she hasn't been very well lately. Why the heck do I have to live this far away? Something is wrong and I don't even know what; you sis listen to me, if you feel like you're burdening people with your problems, don't! Because you aren't and the less you tell me, the more anxious I will get. I hope it's nothing serious, just wanted to remind you of this simple truth that nothing you might ever want to talk about is too stupid or not important enough. I know I can't help much but I'll try, you have my word.

The test in Physics is already behind me and guess what, I don't have to prepare for anything this evening! Not to have a single assignment for the next day? It's almost suspicious... Anyway, at the end of the week I feel unexpectedly well - no important stuff to panick about, no significant homework (whoever believes I'm going to note down all the values of cosinus is a fool), and even though I am sort of tired I can't complain. Even the test was quite easy (if I don't get at least C, I'm going to hunt Mrs M down and force her to show me the paper - something she never does), in Biology we watched a film about DNA, German and English went smoothly as well and in Maths I didn't really try to focus since there's no point in that anyway. History, on the other hand, was real fun - Mrs T asked what we'd like to change in her teaching style and the feedback was unanimous: skip everything concerning Poland! Some patriots we've got here, huh?

I've been loking for Christmas gifts for 2 weeks and have already bought a few; just a couple of items, though. I'd had some ideas but there are things you just won't find here so I had to drop most of them. Now, I'm trying to get hold of a particular book for a friend. One thing is sure - nobody's going to receive socks, gloves or a scarf. Unless they desperatly need some, that is - but I strongly doubt it.

Finished reading 'The Trial' (by Kafka) yesterday. It had took me merely 2 days which is a decent result even though it really is a thin book. Quite a good one, too; I got a bit lost after the unfinished chapter, yet in spite of all the lawyer talk it wasn't tedious, not in the slightiest. Made me feel stupid, yes, that's probably what Kafka'd wanted to achieve anyway. Bored - never. Has anyone already seen the biography of Franz Kafka, the one released just recently? It should be in distribution by now...

Wednesday, December 10, 2003, 09:42 p.m. -

I s'pose I should be studying history but having taken the most awful exam imaginable merely a few hours ago I don't feel particularly guilty putting it off a little bit. Honestly, to learn 15 centuries over 2 days... I'm not saying I did well but by no means does it change the fact that I'm impressed by the speed the mind can absorb information with when you're standing with your back to the wall.
I hate questions like 'What's the connection between the years 1000, 1039 and 1065' or 'Sort the popes in descending order', or 'What's the oldest known written source of information regarding the Vistulian?'. I never know answers to those... By the way, it was the third time I forgot to list Jordan. I always remember to write about Unger but about the first Polish bishop - never. Blah.

Went to Cracow yesterday. With my class, a whole-day trip that began about 3 hours too early to be called reasonable. At the very moment I arrived at the meeting place I realized that on a normal day I'd most likely be waking up just about then just to lie in bed for another 20 minutes and soak as much warmth as possible. Instead, I was at the school entance, frozen to death, surrounded by a couple of sleepy people. It was freakingly dark, too - like the middle of the night. Still, the journey was okay, even though my friend studying madly about 20 cm to the right was indeed sort of distracting. On our way there? No kidding, I just could let her do that so I kept irritating her and succeeded rather completely. She put the book away.
The exposition we were supposed to visit was rather freaky so we were done in less than 30 minutes. Having 4 more hours left, I stuck myself to a group of friends and went with them wherever they wanted to go. We ate a small dinner in the nicest pizzeria we could find, then I left the group and started a little tour round the city market looking for book stores. Found three, all of them crappy or at least definitely worse than the ones we have in Opole. Quite disappointed, I joined my friends again but the free time we'd been given was drawing to the end anyway.
On our way back we really *had* to study history (yes, for the same exam I mentioned at the beginning of this post) but this time it was more like a group activity and proved to be kind of fun. I learnt lots of unimportant stuff and a handfull of dates that were supposed to be of use. Well, one of them was. 1250-1273, we were revolving around this period so much that there was no way I could forget this date and its whereabouts.

Guess I have to get down to studying? This is bad, there are so many other things I could do, so many great books just waiting to be read... And I have to slog at history again. For a change - 5 centuries later! Still both world wars to go and a complete information mess already, eh. Well, bye bye? Bye.

Sunday, December 7, 2003, 11:07 p.m. -

I'm back home. Went to visit the grandparents over the weekend. BTW, I had the most awful, sucking Saturday one could imagine - take a guess, how much time would it take you to travel by train to a city 90 km away? Well, I'll tell you: if you travel with PKP, it's going to be something about 8 hours. Not that with an average Japanese train you could make it throughout the whole Poland within two hours. Besides, it was just so freaking cold I was all frozen and numb, couldn't even move my fingers anymore - or perhaps I could but I stopped checking pretty soon as it hurt like hell. Have I mentioned I was all wet? I can't stop marvelling at the fact I'm still healthy after all of that, there sure should be some kind of pneumonia floating above my head?

I was supposed to fix the guestbook but I'm too lazy to do that. Besides, it's late and Dorian Gray is waiting... What am I saying, Dorian Gray, lord Henry is waiting. I don't really like Dorian, to be honest. Oh well, either way one thing is sure - Wilde is the man.